OneWeb

Founder / s: Greg Wyler
Key people: Tony Azzarelli (Vice President of Regulatory Affairs), Eric Béranger (Chief Executive Officer), David Bettinger (Vice President of Engineering, Communications Systems), Steven Fay (Vice President of Finance and Business Operations) Suzi McBride (Senior Vice President) and Ross Vincenti (General Counsel)

OneWeb can address the most demanding global connectivity challenges and sudden infrastructure crises. Those affected by hurricanes, earthquakes and refugee situations are often abruptly without infrastructure – OneWeb will bridge these intervals providing instantly deployable connectivity or long-term access solutions.

History

OneWeb secured $ 500 million in financing including launch deals with Virgin Galactic and Arianespace in 2015.

In600 2015, OneWeb entered a deal with Airbus Defensive and Space for the construction of its broadband Internet satellites after a competition among US and European manufacturers.

In December 2016, OneWeb raised $ 1 billion from SoftBank Group Corp. and $ 200 million from existing investors.

In February 2017, OneWeb announced that it had sold most of the capacity of its initial 648 satellites, and was considered different quadrupling the size of the satellite constellation by adding 1,972 additional satellites that it has priority rights to. With the original capital raise of $ 500 Million in 2015, plus the $ 1 billion investment of SoftBank in 2016, previous “Swedish committed to an additional $ 200 million, bringing OneWeb’s initial capital raised to $ 1.7 billion.”

A deals arrangement with Intelsat that had been in conducted during May 2017 collapsed in June and did not go forward.